White Noise - 1154 Words

Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its undesired uncertainty threatens societys desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillos novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how Jack Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, death, and popular culture. The theme of deaths influence over the character mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillos story. Perhaps, the character most responsive to death is Jack Gladney. In fact, he is so consumed by his fear of death that his ordinary thought processes are often interrupted by the question: Who will die first (DeLillo 15)? In Jacks mind: This question comes up from time to time,†¦show more content†¦No film footage, no live report. Does this kind of thing happen so often that nobody cares anymore? Dont those people know what weve been throughÂ…? Is it possible nobody gives substantial coverage to such a thing? Half a minute, twenty secondsÂ…? Are they so bored by spills and contaminations and wastes? Do they think this is just televisionÂ…? Dont they know its real (DeLillo 161-162)? The absence of media attention stops the immediate terror from the citizens, making the whole event seem less important, and because the evacuees are attuned to the forms, genres, and in fact the larger aesthetics of television, they experience a lack, a sense of emptiness (Duvall 130). According to Duvall: The heart of the TV mans anger is that for those who experience disaster, the presence of the media makes the experience real; that is, as part of our cultural repertoire, people know, like the TV man, that the media is supposed to be interested in marketing disaster. Therefore, the airborne toxic even cannot be a real disaster if the media shows no interest (133). Irlbeck 5 Consequently, the rumors of death if you are exposed to the black clould could not be accepted as truth without media saying that the event was a disaster; meaning that somehow a media apotheosis assures immortalityÂ…(Conroy 101). DeLillo also displays theShow MoreRelatedWhite Noise By Don Delillo1832 Words   |  8 Pagesnuances—the unknown, the unfamiliar, the fear of these things—repeatedly emerge in eighties’ texts. Whether it be novels, plays or short stories, the strange, the diseased, the dead and the terror of a combination of these things is strikingly evident. White Noise by Don DeLillo, for example, provides its audience with a depiction of a landscape of fear in the eighties. It reflects how the average American felt about impending doom, about society and the changes in society that were unknown to them. It providesRead MoreEssay on Theme of Death in White Noise1107 Words   |  5 PagesWhite Noise Death is probably the most feared word in the English language. Its undesired uncertainty threatens society’s desire to believe that life never ends. Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise tells the bizarre story of how Jack Gladney and his family illustrate the postmodern ideas of religion, death, and popular culture. The theme of death’s influence over the character mentality, consumer lifestyle, and media manipulation is used often throughout DeLillo’s story.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Perhaps, the characterRead MoreAnalysis Of Don Delillo s White Noise1664 Words   |  7 Pagestitle of DeLillo’s eighth novel White Noise brings forth many assumptions towards the overall meaning of the book. If one was to generally interpret the meaning, â€Å"white noise† is produced when sound waves are joined together creating a constant buzz. This buzz can produce a relaxing or an overwhelming feeling, depending, if it refers to a repetitive noise one is trying to avoid or perhaps noise one is trying to embrace. With this being said, DeLillo’s White Noise is set in the twentieth century,Read MoreAmerican Consumerism: Don Delilo’s White Noise 1919 Words   |  8 Pages In Don Delilo’s, White Noise different themes are displayed throughout the novel. Some themes are the fear of death, loss of identity, technology as the enemy, and American consumerism. The society represented in the novel views people as objects and emotionally detached from many things. Death is always in the air and trapped in peoples mind. The culture that’s represented in the novel adds to the loss of individualism, but also adds to the figurative death of the characters introduced in the novelRead More The Power of the Family in White Noise Essay examples1139 Words   |  5 PagesThe Power of the Family in White Noise    Don Dellilos protagonist in his novel White Noise, Jack Gladney, has a nuclear family that is, ostensibly, a prime example of the disjointed nature way of the family of the 80s and 90s -- what with Jacks multiple past marriages and the fact that his children arent all related. Its basically the antipodal image of the 1950s nuclear family. Despite this surface-level disjointedness, it is his family and the extrasensory rapport thatRead MoreBright Lights, Big City And White Noise1934 Words   |  8 Pages Comparison Paper: Bright Lights, Big City and White Noise Bright Lights, Big City Bright Lights, Big City, is an American narrative, by Jay Mclnerney. The narrative is among America’s most notable novels, presented in the second person. In the book, Mclnerney presents the narrator as a worker for highbrow magazine. He depicts the narrator as party maniac, and cocaine user, who intends to literally lose himself in the profligacy (hedonism), of the yuppie party scene (McInerney 213). The narratorRead More The Failure of Technology in White Noise by Don Delillo Essay1055 Words   |  5 PagesThe Failure of Technology in White Noise by Don Delillo One particularly unfortunate trait of modern society is our futile attempt to use technology to immunize ourselves against the fear of death. The failure of technology in this regard is the general subject of Don Delillos book White Noise. Throughout this novel, technology is depicted as the ominous messenger of our common fate, an increasing sense of dread over loss of control of our lives and the approach of inevitable death in spiteRead MoreDon DeLillos White Noise novel and Malcolm Gladwells Big and Bad article1004 Words   |  5 PagesDon DeLillo’s novel, White Noise revolves around the life of Jack, a Hitler Studies scholar at College-on-the-Hill. The characters within the novel all want to involve themselves with the events in an industrial American society. Jack and his fourth spouse, Babette are characterized by their love, fear of loss of life, and four seemingly civilized children. The family seeks to live in a society where the consumerism culture is highly influ enced by media and companies. The characters’ consumerismRead MoreWhite Noise Analysis702 Words   |  3 Pages The fear of death is one of the most prominent themes in White Noise. Everything in the novel - from Hitler to the toxic airborne event - circles back to how human beings are subconsciously afraid of dying. DeLillo’s novel displays how life attempts to push this fear away, almost saying â€Å"out of sight, out of mind†. Yet, as we see in the characters of Jack and Babette, the fear continues to rear its ugly head and fill them with terror. DeLillo shows this close relationship between life and deathRead MoreWhite Noise: Meaning of Life705 Words   |  3 Pages White Noise Something always difficult to establish and defend is a subject every human on the planet must cope with; our personalities are constructed by it, our goals depend on it, our understanding is changed through our perception of it and yet nobody can prove its existence on a physical, superficial level. What is the meaning of life? For some it is a spiritual connection – others – physical, even some believe in a psychological or social foundation, but all people have wondered their purpose